Uber Seeks Patent For AI That Determines Whether Passengers Are Drunk

In an effort to "reduce undesired consequences," Uber is seeking a patent that would use artificial intelligence to separate sober passengers from drunk ones. The pending application details a technology that would be used to spot "uncharacteristic user activity," including passenger location, number of typos entered into the mobile app, and even the angle the smartphone is being held. CNET reports: Uber said it had no immediate plans to implement the technology described in the proposed patent, pointing out the application was filed in 2016. "We are always exploring ways that our technology can help improve the Uber experience for riders and drivers," a spokesperson said. "We file patent applications on many ideas, but not all of them actually become products or features."

Number of typos?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, so that explains it! Here I thought text messages like "wut r u doing 2nite?" were because of the monumental failure of our educational system. Now I know it's from the monumental success of our alcohol industry.

More to the point, this is patentable?

[thesupraman]

So, training a machine learning with sampled data is now patentable?
Does that also mean I can patent 'Training a person to .......'?
That has never been allowable before, why is it allowable now?

Oh, I forgot, the US patent office allows large US companies to patent ANYTHING, totally ignoring actual patent law.

Re:

[sacrilicious]

This *shouldn't* be patentable, per the rule that obvious things shouldn't be patentable. Just reading the headline, my immediate set of thoughts on how to infer drunkenness included all of the ones mentioned in the summary (typos, accelerometer info, location) and then some (scanning text messages for "so fucked up"/"alcohol"/"drinking"/"partying", correlating previous instances of all such conditions cyclically in a week or per an individual binge recovery period, sensing flashing lights, etc). This stuff

Re:

[sacrilicious]

Patents are awarded for implementation. Your example would also be true of the steam engine: coal burns, water turns to steam, moves stuff. It's a bit more complex.

I don't know how hard to think of the steam engine was back in the day... vaccines seem obvious, but that's because now we're all familar with how they work. But more to the point: in the world of software the line between "idea" and "implementation" is razor thin, something that is distinctly not true of a lot of mechanical devices. There are in fact many people who believe that software should be unpatentable, in large part for this blurry-to-nonexistent divide; regardless of whether I'm one of them, t

Re:

[mjwx]

FFS people, its a check box that asks if you want to stop by a kebab shop... Stick a design patent on it and move on.

Re:

[parkinglot777]

So, training a machine learning with sampled data is now patentable? Does that also mean I can patent 'Training a person to .......'? That has never been allowable before, why is it allowable now?

Oh, I forgot, the US patent office allows large US companies to patent ANYTHING, totally ignoring actual patent law.

That's the F-up part of software patents -- allow something to be patented when they aren't supposed to. That's why software should never be patentable.

WTF?

[NerdENerd]

Being drunk is why I am getting an Uber FFS. If they wont pick me up drunk then they have lost my business.

Re: WTF?

[Anonymous Coward]

It'll pick you up. It'll just charge you more because you are a high risk passenger.

Cabbies are tired of cleaning up your vomit.

Maybe if you want to get drunk you can do so at home where you can clean up after your own self.

Re: WTF?

[Mouldy]

That's fair enough, charge people who vomit more. But as someone who has gotten many ubers drunk, has never thrown up in or near an uber and generally doesn't cause a fuss...I don't want to be tarred with the same "all drunk people need to be charged more" brush.

Maybe they should have some sort of star rating. Like, if you're an asshole, or you throw up in ubers, the driver could rate you badly. Then later uber drivers can charge more to pick up someone with a low rating. That way, good-passengers don't get penalised because of the idiotic minority - and the driver has an indication whether a potential passenger is likely to cause them problems.

...maybe that already exists...and this story is either; a lazy PR stunt (this doesn't need AI, but AI gets press), or a genuine greedy attempt at ripping more cash from their customer's hands.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:

[Mouldy]

I'm not sure if it varies by country, but here at least, the uber app lets you tip. And the uber driver cannot see how much you tip until after they rate you.

Re:

[cayenne8]

No shit....

If they stop driving folks around that have been drinking, those folks will go back to driving themselves.

Hell, the #1 reason I started using Uber was that it was such a great alternate option to having to drive my own car out when having adult beverages (I live in New Orleans, EVERY outing involves alcohol), and getting back home, etc.

I would venture to guess that is one of the top if not the main reason people use Uber these days.

Re:

[cayenne8]

Why the fuck would I pay to go somewhere else and watch the game, get drunk and eat, while dealing with obnoxious bar types, when I can do it in the comfort of my own home.

Well, to be sociable and meet new people, perhaps get laid?

Not everyone in a bar is "bad" or "obnoxious"....in fact, the vast majority of people are fun and there to have a good time.

I have a great AV system, kitchen and bar too, but at times its nice to go out and enjoy events with other people too!!

Re:

[Pascoea]

Found the 14 year old!

Re:

[Spinlock_1977]

Maybe cab-driving isn't for you. No worries, driverless will soon eat your lunch, and with a little luck, it won't puke it back up.

Re:

[pgmrdlm]

Asshole, you get charged 300 dollars if you get sick. You are a fucking idiot.

Re:

[Gaxx]

Since when were we equating someone's upholstry with diversity? The threat is that you are more likely to damage the vehicle you are going to be a passenger in. You are more likely to be pain in the ass in any number of ways as a drunk passenger.

If the technology can reliably pick out the drunk from the sober, with no false positives then I'm all for it. No false positives is a bit of a dream, though, and I worry about quite what will happen to the poor folks who hold their phone in a 'drunk' way.

Re: Sounds like more zero tolerance leftism

[fluffernutter]

I thought personal responibility was in the fact that you were drunk and you called an Uber instead of driving the first place. Now they want to discriminate againt you for doing that? What bullshit.

Re:WTF?

[jrumney]

You miss the point of this AI. It is to help Uber drivers find victims [bostonglobe.com], not to avoid them.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

The cameras have been invaluable for Uber and Lyft drivers, and for taxis. Too many customers have accused drivers of abuse, have accidentally left wallets or phones or luggage, and the cameras have been very useful very frequently for just that.

And then there is "Hugh Mungus", who set off some screaming SJW accusing hime of sexual harassment for saying his own name was "Hugh Mungus" and for pointing at himself when asked who he meant. I could not make this up.

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]

The woman we

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

help Uber drivers find victims [bostonglobe.com]

Reading the story ... she was drunk, she made an advance on him, and he consented to sex. And he's accused of rape? Really? If the sexes were the other way around, they'd be more likely to accuse the *drunk* of rape.

Re:

[_merlin]

I can see why he went for it, but as they say when you're getting the basics for counselling, the first rule is "stay behind the desk", and the second rule is "always stay behind the desk". When have a professional relationship of any kind, you absolutely must avoid even the appearance of impropriety.

Re:

[91degrees]

And they're not suggesting they won't pick you up. they developed the technology. They might as well benefit if others find a use for it.

Re:WTF?

[stephanruby]

No, I think this patent was about their self-driving car. To be turing complete, a self-driving car should probably be able to yell at its passengers to sit the fuck back down and to put their pants back on before safely exiting the vehicle.

Since they filed this application in 2016, at the time they probably still had high hopes for their self-driving platform.

Re:

[AvitarX]

I assumed "separate sober passengers from drunk ones." means they don't want the Uber X to commingle the two.

This makes sense I think, if I'm heading out at 8pm, I don't wanna share with someone leaving a happy hour wrecked.

Why not use on DRIVERS too?

[THE_WELL_HUNG_OYSTER]

...because isn't that more important?

Re:

[jrumney]

Someone needs to patent an AI that can determine if your Uber driver is a murderer [usatoday.com] or rapist [bostonglobe.com].

Re:

[geekmux]

Discrimination....

And you think it's sober people Uber is picking up between midnight and 4AM on a Friday night? Drunk people already pay a premium when they often find their drinking schedule aligns with "peak" rates...

So patent system abuse then?

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait a second, I am confused? You weren't supposed to file a patent for an idea. Ideas were supposedly unpatentable. What you were supposed to file a patent for was a method of using or achieving the said idea, but otherwise ideas had no place in patents

Re:

[91degrees]

If it measures parameters such as location, phone angle, typing accuracy and so on, and works out a probability score based on that then it is far more than an idea.

I have no idea if this is the case or not, but I presume it is.

Re:So patent system abuse then?

[blackest_k]

It doesn't matter, as someone who has done private hire, from experience, when a pub wants to get rid of a customer who is too drunk, somebody else calls the cab.

You go out for the job and then have to decide if its worth picking up the drunk or not.

Just a Thought

[dohzer]

While they're at it, can they patent a car that doesn't kill pedestrians?

Re:

[Type44Q]

They tried to but there was lots of prior art. [duckduckgo.com]

Re:

[Chris Mattern]

While they're at it, can they patent a car that doesn't kill pedestrians?

You are talking about thousands of pounds of metal moving at scores of miles per hour. There is no way to prevent it from killing pedestrians if things go wrong (and there's no way to completely prevent things from going wrong).

Re:

[dohzer]

Sure there is: always travel at a speed at which you can stop in the event of the unexpected.
Of course, that may mean extremely slow rides and sad passengers (especially the wealthy ones), but it would work.

Not AI

[mrbester]

As someone pointed out on Twitter, this isn't AI but an if statement.

Re:

[Tsolias]

if (computer is smart enough to tell when a person is drunk)
  { don't pick drunks up in an uber }

I might not be an expert, but AFAIK Python doesn't have curly brackets.

Anyone have a link to the patent?

[91degrees]

I'm no patent lawyer, so maybe I'm not up on the jargon, and maybe "Systems, methods, and vehicles for taking a vehicle out-of-service" means "detecting if someone is drunk", but the link here and in the article seem to point me to an unrelated patent.

AI this, AI that...

[Tsolias]

what could've been solved with a simple air sensor detecting alcohol in the air, now it has to be "AI".
But what I'm talking about... if it was for the sensor practical and 100% working solution, it wouldn't have made it to the news.
meanwhile at Uber HQ: "Hello idiot investors. We have to use AI for this solution. Pliz gib more moneeh."
Just your daily dosage of faux tech.

nice!

[drewsup]

Maybe they should have one fir drivers first tho !!

Lyft then

[spinitch]

Why would Uber care? It is 2am Especially on a weekend. Save your computing cycles, probably drinking. One of the attractions to ride services can drink and not drive. Why not just ask the passengers instead of going into creepy mode?

Passengers?

[nospam007]

I'd like an AI that tells me if the _driver_ is drunk, the passengers are almost always legally drunk after a certain hour, that's why they take an Uber instead of driving under the influence.

Disabled

[Sean Clifford]

Disabled people, particularly those with cerebral palsy, Parkinson's disease, and other neuromotor conditions, are absolutely going to be misidentified as drunk and discriminated against by Uber. Uber currently has a crappy track record serving the disabled, refusing service to those with wheelchairs, guide dogs, and so on. The drunk hail an Uber when they shouldn't be driving. Many disabled hail an Uber because, sober or drunk, they cannot drive at all.

Re: Disabled

[Miamicanes]

The difference is, someone who's disabled might ALWAYS exhibit symptoms that someone who's NOT handicapped might show ONLY when drunk. If you treat every analysis as a stateless, history- and context-free event, they might look alike. Factor in "all the time" vs "between 11pm Friday and dawn Monday + located within 200 feet of a bar", and the ones likely to be drunk instead of disabled start to stand out again.

The biggest real problem with using AI as judge, jury, and executioner is the casual acceptance of

AI? Are you kidding?

[old_skul]

It doesn't take a whole lot of AI to know that pretty much EVERY passenger is drunk when you're driving Uber at 2AM in a university area.

Instead of having a designated driver...

[eth1]

I now need a "designated Uber-summoner"? :P

That said, the app is so bad and frustrating (keeps deleting input, etc.) that I probably would look drunk using it even stone sober...

Simpler solution

[TraumaFox]

I'm willing to bet that you'd get a better ratio of honest answers by simply presenting an "Are you drunk?" checkbox than all the false positives you'd get from trying to use AI to determine drunkenness.

Easy even without AI

[seven of five]

Is passenger drunk? "Yes"
Very few false positives.

In Seattle nobody is drunk

[WillAffleckUW]

We're just high on life.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Pretty simple software

[Locke2005]

If they're calling for an Uber... yep, they must be drunk!

Foster Brooks test

[mencik]

Too bad Foster Brooks [wikipedia.org] is no longer available to test this AI.